Be a Politician? No Thanks.

A question (well questions really) posed by Simon Gibbs over at the Libertarian Home website:

My question to Pavel, which I will repeat, is what other challenges prevent you, dear reader, from standing on your own behalf to fight a campaign? Is it the absence of a positive Party brand? The official paperwork? Publicity? Is it solely a lack of resources such as time and money?

Obviously I can only speak for myself, but the problem isn’t so much the lack of an effective party structure or the lack of relevant resources. It is that I have no inclination to run any sort of campaign, let alone a campaign for office. It isn’t so much that I wouldn’t win – but obviously embarking on a thankless quest almost certainly destined to end in failure won’t appeal to most. Rather, I’d be afraid of winning. Put simply, I have no interest in holding office within the political structure of Great Britain. I do not want to immerse myself within the massive bureaucratic nightmare that is the British state, and I do not want to expose myself or my loved ones to the public spotlight and our intrusive media that has no respect whatsoever for the privacy of any public figure. Above all, I don’t want to be a politician. I lack the arrogance to believe that I know best and that my opinions should be forced onto others.

Furthermore, I think we have adopted a very narrow sense of what constitutes politics in this country. We see politics as increasingly synonymous with government; local, regional or (mainly) central. We see those who stand for Parliament as the real politicians, backed up by lesser politicians in those who make up the party structures. However, I would argue that there is very little that is genuinely political about MPs who become lobby fodder in the House of Commons or those party functionaries and unthinking supporters who spout a party line about issues rather than engaging with those issues and reaching their own conclusions about them. There is more politics happening in a debate between open-minded, politically aware people in the pub than there is in a “debate” in the Commons. The tragedy is that the debate in the pub evaporates into the ether just as soon as the final beers are supped whereas the drones making laws in the legislature can affect each and every one of use.

Of course, this leaves us in a perfect Catch 22 situation; the only way we can change the system is by engaging with it – but, by engaging with the system, we run the risk of becoming apolitical as we conform to the restrictions of that system. I don’t know the way out of that conundrum, but I do know where I stand in relation to the political system in this country; resolutely and happily on the outside.

So why don’t I run a campaign on my own? Because I don’t want to be a politician. And I suspect I am not alone in that.

This blog was set-up primarily to discuss politics, with occasional forays into other areas that I find interesting. Yesterday, this blog had its biggest day ever by a country mile in terms of visits, with over 900 people stopping by. And what was the big story that made the vast majority of visitors stop by? The previous day's review of Doctor Who.

I'm fully aware that there are other, and better, websites to head to for a daily fix of politics. But that isn't going to stop me, just for a little bit, from believing that Doctor Who has finally become more importat that politics - just as I knew it would always do...

Who is the most absurd looking UK politician?

This story is pretty dull - I mean, I'd rather councils did their job and picked up the bins every week, but I can't get worked up about it. But I would like to point out the picture in the story, if only because it is so striking in so many ways:

Oh look! It's Humpty Dumpty forced into a business suit on his way to his first day in the office as an accountant.

Ok, Ok, I know it is wrong to diss politicians because they aren't photogenic, but fuck it. They largely bring it on themselves, the preening camera-whores. So I'd like to set a deeply shallow and deeply offensive, but hopefully still fun, competition - who can come up with the person who is the most absurd looking politician in British politics today? Pickles gets my vote - who gets your vote?

The Cameron Baby

So, Samantha Cameron's gonna have a baby. Before I consign this story to the big fat pile of stuff I just don't care about, let's deal with one thing. The timing.

Obviously, you can plan when to have a baby. However, just because you can plan when to procreate doesn't mean that every baby is planned. And while there will be any number of conspiracy theories telling you that this baby was timed to coincide with the coming election, I think that is bollocks. For three reasons:

1. Firstly, if you wanted to plan a political baby, then you would try to get it to have a birth date as close to election day as possible. Just imagine the shots and the positive publicity around young Hug A Husky Cameron if he was pictured holding his newborn kid on the eve of polling. As it stands...
2. Samantha Cameron will probably be able to do less campaigning owing to her pregnancy than she might otherwise have done. Since this election is increasingly becoming about the reasonably photogenic other halves of our leaders (yeah, I know, but it is all relative - they are relatively photogenic when compared to the men they married) the timing is not ideal for Call Me Dave's campaigning. Plus....
3. This baby will be born within months of Cameron becoming Prime Minister (assuming he is allowed to do so by the electorate). Now, I've never been Prime Minister, but I'm guessing it is a pretty tough job. And a job that won't be made any easier by have a screaming infant in the close confines of Number 10, Downing Street. Learning how to run Great Britain is not going to be aided by changing shitty nappies at all hours of the day and night.

But anyway, before this blog turns into a political version of the execrable Heat Magazine, that's enough on the Cameron foetus.

Nu Labour and the Celebrity Endorsement

Over at LabourList, I see that some sort of Nu Labour drone* has managed to write a book. It’s a short book, mind, but that’s understandable when you consider the topic – Why Vote Labour. Frankly, I’m amazed she managed to produce enough text even for a small book. I’d have thought this sort of tome could have been written on the back of a bar mat. And since it is about reasons to vote for Labour, written on the back of a bar mat after a substantial session of absinthe drinking.

But then we see Ms Reeves’ secret – she’s got other people to help her write her “book”:

"Why Vote Labour" tells the inspirational stories of people and families from up and down the country about the difference Labour has made to them. It also includes personal accounts from Jo Brand, Gurinder Chadha, Bono, Eddie Izzard and others on the difference Labour has made.

Right, so, we should vote Labour because a sarcastic bag of lard, someone I’ve never heard of, a twat whose egregious personality is summed up perfectly by his idiotic sunglasses, and a long past prime comedian happened to have scrawled some meaningless gibberish in a lightweight tome penned by a Labour PPC. In the whole broad spectrum of shitty reasons to vote Labour, that has to be one of the worst. In fact, the only way that list of celebrities could have been made even more repellent is by including the chopper to end all choppers – Sting.

And I can’t stand it. I just can’t stand it. I cannot cope with this notion that because someone has a hit record, they suddenly become an expert on politics who is worth quoting by someone aspiring to become a legislator. And I despair of the fact that she would quote comedians as a reason to vote for her shit awful party without even a hint of irony.

I want to write a book. It would be called “Why celebrities are cunts, and how they have helped to destroy politics.” Because that’s what this is – the debasement and destruction of political discourse in this country. Soon, we’ll be in a position where parties cease to publish manifestos, and instead commission a special edition of Hello! magazine that contains celebrities as charismatic and convincing as Chris Martin out of Coldplay wibbling on about why we should vote Labour because “it’s like good, and stuff.”

So fuck off. Fuck off the lot of you. To celebrities – do what your best at. Which isn’t political interventions. To politicians, get a grip. If you have now become dependent on “celebrities” to make your case and connect you to the people, then you have lost your way, and you have lost your Raison d'être. And know this – any party that uses the likes of Bono fucking Vox as an expert on anything other than making largely shitty records is not getting my vote. Not now, not ever.

*Seriously, where the fuck do they get these people from? Is there a factory somewhere outside Wigan mass-producing these tools?

Where The Wild Things Are

The review:

It is an Ok film. Visually, it is remarkable, and the creatures are extremely well realised. The soundtrack is fitting, although just a little bit too desperate to sound like the Arcade Fire for its own good. And, mercifully for this type of film, the kid in the lead role isn't immensely irritating. However, it is neither as amusing or as dark as some people would have you believe. Despite being presented in the manner of a very well realised music video, this is a film for children. Adults won't be bored by it, but they are not going to be stunned by it either.

What I would like people to take from it (spoilers ahead):

Ok, so, the kid - whose name I can't remember - turns up on the island where the wild things are. There, he stops himself from being eaten by telling the wild things that he can make them happy, using powers he clearly does not possess. Overwhelmed by the idea that someone can actually do this, the wild things make the kid their king. He briefly distracts them, but ultimately they end up still unhappy and the kid's powers turn out to be nothing but hot air. The kid stops being their king, and pisses off somewhere else to have some cake that he really hasn't earned.

Now, regardless of authorial intention, this film can be read as a perfect allegory for the fatal flaws of modern democracy. Substitute "Tony Blair" for the kid and "electorate" for the wild things in the passage above and you have the perfect potted history of what happened under Blair in this country. And what is currently happening across the pond under one Barack Obama. The film can be interpreted as a wonderful indictment of any egotistical figure who is pumped up by others to make rash promises about future happiness, and of those who would blindly follow such a person in pursuit of a spurious and constantly elusive better tomorrow. The message of the film is that you can't make other people be happy through simply saying you want to, and you need to work at making yourself and your loved ones happy. The political message to take from this movie is that you shouldn't look to a leader with grand promises to make everything better for you; you have the ultimate responsibility to make things better for yourself.

Debate and Definitions

A few weeks ago, I asked the question "what to do with the railroad?" There doesn't appear to be a clear solution but, as DK notes, talk of privatistion and nationalisation hides the fact that the railways weren't transferred back to the private sector under Major:

And that's all I wanted to point out: that the railways are not privatised. But maybe, just maybe, we might look at whether proper privatisation could work.

But it would have to be proper privatisation—without the constant and crippling interference and condition-setting, occasional nationalisation (e.g. WWI) or commandeering (e.g. WWII) or the companies and network that the state has indulged in almost since the very inception of the rail industry.

Quite. The railways weren't privatised properly; it is disingenuous to refer to them as privately owned and privately operated. And it isn't just the missed classification of the railways. Across the board, words and phrases are being twisted in their meaning to allow the government to get away with murder. For example, we've heard a lot about the failure of free market capitalism since the recession began - something that hides the fact that we have a mixed economy in this country that is anything other than free. We are constantly told that the banking sector needs to be regulated - yet it already was massively regulated when it went tits up and strangled the rest of the economy. We hear about how the War On Terror is about increasing our security and bringing "freedom" and "democracy" to other parts of the world, even though it does anything other than achieve security, freedom or democracy.

This bastardisation of terminology may sound like a tedious point of semantics, but it really isn't. It allows the ruling elite to control the debate with our democracy through misusing simple words. Privatisation can be painted as a bad thing based on the failure of the railways; even though they haven't been privatised. The banking crises can be used as part of the argument for regulation - even though regulation did nothing to prevent the collapse of certain banks. And so on, and so on, and so on. Until the terrified and terrifying rictus grin on Gordon Brown's face sums up the "progressive" movement in this country, and the ever preening David Cameron apparently leads a "conservative" party offering nothing other than utterly empty concepts of "change".

It isn't even a question of arguing with our elected elite; it is more about telling them to shut the fuck up until they learn what very basic terms mean and use then use those terms correctly.

The Death of the Word "Liberal"

The Guardian has an article up praising a Democrat who manages to be just as unpleasant as the Republicans. Go him! But it also has an interesting phrase in it that really caught my eye:

Democrats have effectively allowed Republicans to elide the word "liberal" from an adjective into a smear.

Now, this piece of analysis is spot-on. The Democrats have allowed the Republicans to take the word "liberal" and turn it into a political curse. Most Democrats would be afraid of being classed as "liberal", since this creates images of a vast, intrusive state; of socialism, and the degradation of the American way of life. Liberal means a socialist or even a communist in the US political vocabulary. Which is, of course, not what the word means at all.

Yet the Democrats have opened up the word to the sort of abuse Republicans have heaped on it by trying to co-opt it as their own. They tried to make it a label for social democracy, for higher taxes and state intervention. They tried to make liberalism into their watered down version of socialism. That's why the Republicans have shat on the concept - not because of what liberalism actually means, but because the Democrats corrupted the word.

See, I'm a liberal - I believe in freedom. I don't believe in the corruption of the word espoused by the Democrats or by the Liberal Democrats in this country. Rather, I believe in maximising the freedom of the individuals in this country by respecting basic rights and limiting the intrusive government. I believe that "freedom from" will lead to "freedom to." I call myself The Nameless Libertarian because I am a liberal. However, I am not a liberal in the sense that the word has come to mean. That is why I have to clarify and call myself a Libertarian.

Liberal should be a great, evocative word that means something more than narrow, state-serving Social Democracy. Just as the word conservative should mean something different that the amorphous, soulless pragmatism of the Tory party in this country - a party that would be happily led by anyone from Ted Heath to David Cameron via Margaret Thatcher as long as the leader looks like they could win an election. Or the curious compassionate conservatism of George W Bush that involved a radical increase in state power and a crusade against other sovereign nations. Conservatism used to mean a particular attitude towards the development of the state, and a hostility to revolution. It has now been used by so many different people in so many different ways that it has lost that meaning, and become just another catchword used to score political points.

Perhaps it is the zeitgeist; that words that once had a political potency are now devalued to such a point that they are utterly meaningless. A "conservative" at once describes both Compromise Cameron and the Imperialist tendencies of Bush The Junior. A "liberal" describes Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and various other social democrats in the USA. The words no longer mean what they once meant. They have been co-opted by those who do not understand those words in order to add legitimacy to their spurious ideological claims. It is probably pointless to lament the debasement of a political label, but I wish I could describe myself as a liberal without making people think I am a Social Democrat. Just as I am sure that there are conservatives who wish that using that term didn't evoke images in the minds of many people of one George W Bush.

Quote of the Day

Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.

Hannah Arendt, 1906-1975

Quote of the Day

All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.

Enoch Powell, speaking in 1977

Another day, another political internet quiz - this one I spotted at Hell Patrol on a post by David Cameron's Forehead. Here are my overall political views:

My Political Views
I am a right social libertarian
Right: 5.63, Libertarian: 7.88

Political Spectrum Quiz


Right-of-centre Social Libertarian... hmmm, sounds about right.

And in foreign policy:

My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -4.88

Political Spectrum Quiz


Again, spot on.

And finally, in terms of culture:

My Culture War Stance
Score: -8.14

Political Spectrum Quiz

Absolutely right. Jeez, one of these crappy quizzes that actually works... who'd have thought it?

Matt Smith: Not black or female, apparently

Amongst the first of no doubt reams of coverage of the New Doctor - from The Independent:

"Smith is not black and he's not a woman, which left some fans wondering why a more daring decision had not been made.."

Fortunately I don't know many Doctor Who fans - I suspect that if I did they would irritate me a lot. But of my friends and family members who watch, and have a passing affection for, the show, none have expressed any thoughts on the Doctor not being black or female. Most of them have said "who he?", closely followed by "well, he looks unconventional." So part of me does wonder exactly who is wondering why a more daring decision wasn't made, and whether in fact those wondering are the editorial and writing staff of The Independent.

I don't really understand why some people are so keen to see the Doctor as black or female (odd how very few people mention Asian or other ethnic minorities, isn't it?) For me, the choice should always be to have the best possible actor in the role, regardless of gender or ethnic background. If Matt Smith is white and male but the best person to play the Eleventh Doctor, then he should play the Eleventh Doctor. To cast someone based on their gender or ethnic background is just as patronising and wrong as not casting someone based on such factors. This isn't about finding a figurehead for equality in British society; it is about the finding a good actor to play an alien on a popular Saturday night TV programme.

This undercurrent of positive discrimination can be seen across society today, not just in the casting for TV roles. Take Harriet Harman, whose campaign for Deputy Labour Leader centred on her gender and her claim that there should be a woman at the heart of British Politics. The truth - particularly given our country is going to hell in a handcart - is that the most capable people should be at the top of British politics, regardless of gender, race or disability. Personally I don't care what the people leading this country look or sound like; as long as they actually have the best interests of the people at heart*.

That gross, utterly unacceptable and completely immoral discrimination existed and exists in Britain today is a fact. But this can't be effectively remedied by favouring those groups within society who have been discriminated against in the past through some sort of positive discrimination. We'll have equality in this country when people are chosen for a job based purely on their abilities and suitability for the role in question; not because of/not because of their gender, race etc. And we'll know that equality has properly been accepted in this country when people don't comment of the race/gender/age of the people taken on a new role or job as a reason for getting that role/job. And instead can safely make the assumption that the best person got the job.

*Given our current stock of bovine, self-serving shits serving in the Commons, the phrase "chance would be a fine fucking thing" springs to mind.

Barack Obama Will Fail

There are few guarantees in life, and it is next to impossible to predict the future. However, what I can guarantee is that Barack Obama will be a disappointment. And not just to jaundiced, cynical types like me - he'll be a disappointment to pretty much everyone.

And do pipe down, Mr and Mrs Ardent Barack Obama supporter. Because that disappointment will hit you too. At some point over the next four years, he will disappoint you. And it will be more heartbreaking and crushing for you than for others, as your passion for the President-elect is so strong. In fact, Obama will go on to create as much cynicism in the future as he has created hope at the moment, when people realise he is not as great as the shameless hype has made him out to be.

I've read quite a few comments in the past week comparing Obama in 2008 with Blair in 1997, and that is a solid comparison. Blair will have created a lot of disappointed people as his promised era of change became just more of the same. But is it not just Blair who has done this. There's also, just in the UK, Eden, Wilson, Callaghan, Brown, Major and - so some extent, even Thatcher and Attlee. Any politician offering change through state appartus seems to end up being a massive disappointment.

To some extent, this is the fault of the politicians seeking election. For example, Gordon Brown promised an end to spin; one of the many reasons why people are so fucked off with the Gordo is because he promised something that he had no intention of delivering. And Obama has promised change, without explaining what change is. And how much will he really be able to reform anything, given his statist ideals are going to be constrained by the current economic climate and by the two wars that the US is currently fighting? Politicians invite disappointment from their supporters as their colossal egos make them promise things that they could never possibly deliver on.

But it is also our fault - the supporters, the voters. We* fall for the sales pitch. We buy into the latest new hope for the nation. We believe the hand of history is going to make the likes of Obama great. We go for the rhetoric, the hype, the self-promoting nonsense. And we fly in the face of history, by ignoring the disappointing precedents. We set up politicians to fail, but having expectations that are clearly beyond the abilities of politicians and their administrations to deliver on.

Which is one of the reasons why I am a Libertarian. Most politicians come to power with some bold, if not insanely optimistic, promises of what the state can do for its citizens. They are looking to leave their mark on history, like a dog wanting to leave a scent on a lamp post. However, your Libertarian candidate should not - and generally isn't - seeking power for the sake of an ego-massage or to find their place in the history books. Rather, they are looking to limit their powers from the outset, and once people have had power from the state returned to them, a Libertarian government will aspire to nothing more than running a capable, limited and almost minimalist administration. Far from promising what the state can do under Libertarians, they will talk about what the state will no longer do.

In theory, the only truly radical and historical Libertarian government will be the first one - the one that returns power to the people, that allows people to become responsible for themselves again rather than giving up responsibility for themselves to the state. Deconstructing the welfare state, reforming the tax code, restoring civil liberties and the justice system - there is a lot to do and therefore it might take more than one administration to do it all. But the unique nature of a Libertarian government is that the reforms would remove government power and reduce the scope of the state. Rather than tinkering with the apparatus of the state and making the basic mistake that state intervention is the answer to pretty much every national issue.

You know you can have genuine hope in a politician vying for high office when they use phrases such as "there is nothing government can do about that" or "this is not an area that requires government intervention." Obama and his ilk are destined to fail because they promise that the state can deliver more than it actually can. A Libertarian government can only fail if they do not start to fight against state intervention, and start to allow you rather than the state to choose what is best for you and for your life.

*Not everyone, obviously. But there were enough people to vote Blair into office. Three times.

Asbestos - That'll learn 'em!

From a report about the presence of asbestos in the Palace of Westminster:

"We became aware of significant dangers and risks to the health and safety of persons not only gaining access and working in the risers and ducts but generally to all persons within the Palace of Westminister (sic)."

MPs* have significant risks to their health and safety? I don’t believe in karma, but if I did, I can’t help but think many members of Parliament have recently earned significant risks to their health…

*I appreciate this is also a worry to staff and visitors at the Palace of Westminster – of course, they have my sympathy.

Bugging Your Own

Just when you thought that our leaders had reached rock bottom, we see them hitting a new low. Because now we have the Labour government bugging Labour MPs, in contravention of a Labour doctrine set up by a Labour PM. There is some validity in asking why MPs should be saved from bugging when no-one else is, but that’s not my point here. What strikes me is the crippling, jaw-dropping paranoia behind this incident. Not only do they not trust the electorate, they don’t trust their own MPs. It is that murky X-Files mentality: Trust No-One.

It was a bugging scandal that brought down Richard Nixon. Let’s hope that Nu Labour is finally brought down by this scandal – or any of the other numerous scandals surrounding this tattered, tired mess of an administration – sooner rather than later. Britain deserves a much more capable and a much less paranoid government.

All change? No change.

It has just occurred to me, whilst reading yet again about how this is the first US election in decades where no incumbent President or Vice-President is contesting it, that the next election here in the UK (whenever the one eyed git deigns to allow it) will also be something of a first, at least for a good few years. Because not one of those people heading up the three main parties has fought an election as party leader before. You have to go right back to 1979 to find a similar scenario.

And it is tempting to look back to 1979 and hope that we will see a similar, radical change to British politics. After all, in 1979 we had an incompetent former Labour Chancellor who had become Prime Minister in the wake of the resignation of a much more popular, electable and eloquent Labour leader. That former Chancellor had postponed an election, thus sealing the fate of his government. In 2008, we have the same scenario - it is just the name of the PM has changed.

However, that (sadly) is where the similarity ends. Because whilst the fall of Ming Campbell does bring a smile to my jaundiced, cynical lips, it is nowhere near as dramatic as the fall of Jeremy Thorpe. But even more strikingly you have the difference in Tory leaders. In 1979, the Tory leader was a woman of conviction, who had radical ideas on how to improve the UK. In 2008 the Tories are being led by a man who seems to be happy to be called the "heir to Blair", when we all know that such a tag should be sending any self respecting Tory to the car with a length of hosepipe and some gaffer tape.

Would it be too much to hope for that with such a massive change in the leadership of the main parties in the UK that there would be a similar massive change in the policies of those parties? Sadly, in the Britain of 2008, the answer is "yes."

My Political Compass

Via DK I've done a test on my political compass:

Normally I'm sceptical about online tests but right of centre libertarian? Spot on.

Gordon Brown's Signature

One of the more interesting things about the biographies of politicians on Wikipedia is you can take a look at their signature. And if you are so inclined, you can then examine that signature in line with basic graphology.

You can probably see where this is going, but here is Gordon Brown's signature:

His signature leans to the left: "A left slant indicates introspection."

His signature goes downwards: "A downward slant or lines with trail off the page indicate depression or physical exhaustion."

His signature is uneven and irregular: "Squiggles and irregular strokes indicate an artistic and non standard approach."

There we have it: Gordon Brown is an introspective, depressed and exhausted person who follows a non standard approach. Which, in fairness, should be news to precisely no-one at this point.

Beyond Hypocrisy

The Labour MP Graham Allen attacks John Major:

"During his tenure donations were not all declared and foreign donations were commonplace. It took a Labour government to end those scandals and introduce legislation to bring greater transparency to party funding."

You what? Ending scandals like Cash for Peerages? Greater transparency like in the Donorgate scandal?

Doublethink, pure and simple.

But he stole my policies!

Ever since Blair first became Labour leader and a broad consensus developed between the main parties, we have continually heard the charge of "he stole my policies!" And the charge is, more often than not, correct - Labour are a bunch of thieving bastards, and not just when it comes to policy.

But when you think about it it says something quite telling about the mind sets of our politicians that they would complain when a government steals their policies. Sure, it means that they will lose a selling point that could help them win over the electorate. But on the plus side, they get their policies implemented by the government. You would have thought that was exactly what they would be looking for. Except it is not really about their ideologies. It is not about having their policies put into action, even if it is not by them. It is about them having the policies that are easy to sell, so they can win elections, and so they can get their grubby hands on power.

"Politicians: Power Hungry Bastards" is hardly an original observation, but it remains very true. But I long for the day when you hear Cameron or some other political leader bellyaching about their policies being stolen, and someone turns to him and says "so? Isn't having your policies implemented by the government precisely what you want?"